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Thursday, January 16, 2014

In 2010 I wrote a post entitled: “Praying with Chuck Denham.” Yesterday evening before bedtime I began receiving emails from
various leaders in the patient safety movement who read that post and knew of
my work with Chuck. They had
questions about a January 9, 2014 article by Jonathan Stempel in Reuters
stating:

“CareFusion Corp
agreed to pay $40.1 million to settle a federal government lawsuit accusing it
of paying kickbacks to boost sales of a pre-surgical skin treatment, and
marketing the product for unapproved uses.

The accord announced on
Thursday by the U.S. Department of Justice

resolves allegations that
CareFusion violated the federal False Claims Act by paying $11.6 million to a
doctor to promote its ChloraPrep product to healthcare providers.

That doctor, Charles
Denham, received the kickbacks while serving as co-chair of the safe practices
committee of the nonprofit National Quality Forum, which makes recommendations
on healthcare practices, the Justice Department said.

"Corrupting the
standard-setting process through kickbacks can affect the healthcare treatment
choices that doctors and hospitals may make for patients," Stuart Delery,
assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil division, said in
a statement.

The lawsuit also claimed
that CareFusion promoted ChloraPrep from September 2009 through August 2011 for
unapproved uses.

The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration had approved ChloraPrep to prepare patients' skin for surgery or
injections. CareFusion said on Thursday that it set aside funds for the
settlement in the first quarter of 2013.

Chief Executive Officer
Kieran Gallahue said the San Diego-based company is pleased to settle, and has
made "significant investments" to improve its quality and compliance
practices, including in sales and marketing.

Denham could not
immediately be reached for comment.”

I spoke to Chuck a few
minutes ago and he is working on a response statement based on the original
legal document. The document is quite
large so he will address each point carefully and with complete respect. That is all I can say right now about
the article in Reuters.

I can tell you what I know
about Charles Denham. He is a
tireless advocate for patient safety.
He hosts regular patient safety calls on Saturday mornings with patients
and has done so for years. He
films hour upon hour of patient safety video for his Discovery Channel
documentaries in the hope that those films will reach the general public and
alert them to the dangers of infection.
He drives his creative team team at TMIT (Texas Medical Institute of
Technology) ever forward to more and more campaigns that address patient
safety. He helped create
Speakerlink.org so patients would have some kind of platform to spread
awareness of the power of patient speakers.

I was honored to work with
the TMIT group as a paid fellow in 2011-2012. That helped me pay my rent, support my family and my advocacy
mission. In the years hence I have
participated in numerous unpaid webinars and conference calls in my support of
the valid patient safety work of Chuck and his team at TMIT.

In the fall of 2012, I
organized a conference called Partnership with Patients in Kansas City. It was a great meeting of patients and
partners from around the country focused on patient safety and data
access. I paid for that event
through crowdfunding and my own personal income.

So to all of my dear
patients friends and fellow advocates who attended that event and received
travel scholarships, were we taking ‘kickbacks’ from Carefusion for our noble
work? I ask everyone in the
patient safety movement to pause and consider Chuck’s stellar work within the
movement.

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Today is January 7 and this day is known as Distaff
day. Other than my friend Julia
Cooper, I doubt very many of you will celebrate this day in its traditional
way. Today is the day we leave the
Christmas holiday behind us and pick up our work tasks again.

Imagine a world where people carry devices wherever they go. Whether you are a pauper
or princess, this is a world where people rarely go out socially without their technology
close at hand. The line between work and personal life is hopelessly
blurred. You cannot even take your kids to the park without pulling out your
device and following the most recent thread. Does this sound like our
wired society?

I thought so last January when I first wrote about
Distaff Day. Well, I am actually describing the world of the average woman in
the Middle Ages. Back then every woman, regardless of age or rank, was
expected to fill their day with meaningful work. So each woman would
carry their spindle and distaff (also called a rock) with them to social
occasions. Sometimes they would even gather for this purpose and it was
called “a rocking” I guess the modern equivalent of that would be a “tweet-up.”
It was a constant frenzy of thread creation.

But there were times that it was considered appropriate
to put down the spindle and focus on friends, family and spirituality.
People would “unplug” (Or would that be unlace?) during the 12 days of Christmas.
I see a pronounced absence of social media voices during the holidays. After
the “Engage in Grace” blogroll of late November our thought leaders in medicine
pause and focus their thoughts on home and family. During the holidays we set down our “spindles.”

Last Distaff Day I was working on a large painting for
the great folks at Eliza. AlexDrane had asked me to paint my vision of the company and its mission. I painted a large triptych entitled
“Eliza.”

In this painting the sky is blue and the ground consists
of an overwhelming mass of green cables and threads.Blue and Green are the corporate colors of health care and
they provide the foundation to the piece.Like the ever-changing technology of our times, this foundation seems to
writhe and pulse; almost washing away the characters within the painting.

To the far left, I painted a mother at her spinning
wheel. Here thread leaves the
distaff and flows to a large loom at the center of the painting. The large wooden loom is braced above
with a vintage phone receiver. To
the lower left a telephone switchboard operator moves cable after cable connecting
calls. This represents the work
Eliza does to connect with patients on the telephone.

A row of patients and their caregivers stand within the
flowing cables. They stand as though
on the assembly line, they are placing their needed medication in pillboxes. The system at Eliza is trying to help
them remember this process in health.

To the right and left of the large loom stand two
versions of Eliza Doolittle from “My Fair Lady.” This character is the namesake of the company. The Eliza on the left is a beautiful
maiden holding the coiled phone line in her hands as though spinning at the
distaff. The Eliza on the right is
the crone. Her face is haggard and her basket empty. At the center of the loom a mother figure weaves. A mother is supposed to run the loom
and control the weft and warp of time and technology. So deeply meshed within this painting is the role of women
in care giving that the symbols of this role take up 80% of the painting.

To the lower right a male technician hauls a circuit
board across the frame. Upon its
circuits the word Eliza is written in Morse code.

Beside him and behind him a film reel unspools
representing the media Eliza creates to help patient populations. The word
Eliza is also written in a swirling font among the cables in the lower center
panel. In this area of the
painting, children stare upon the viewer. The youngest holds out a smart phone with the word "Eliza."

These are
children are the future beneficiaries of the great work of this company.

In the center behind the loom, the mother figure is time
and space itself. This was not
always the case. In my original
attempt at completing this masterpiece, I painted Alex Drane into the
composition. I knew that she
was a strong mother in her own family but she was also the public face of
Eliza. She taught me the
importance of their work. She
showed me their data sets and thoughtful campaigns to help people attain better
health outcomes.

When Alex saw my center panel she felt that I definitely had been inspired by Distaff day. That would be pronounced
Dis-the–Staff. She was troubled
that she took such a prominent place as Eliza Corporation was a team environment. So I did something a rarely do, I
repainted the center figure.

This time I painted Demeter as a mother goddess. Painting over your own work can be a
painful thing, but I said good-bye to Alex.
The new figure was fuller of face with a quiet countenance. Her hair was the color of straw and
bedecked with grains of wheat. I
finished the painting and mailed it to Eliza in May of 2013.

In June at Health Datapalooza, Alex took me quietly aside
and told me the she still had trouble with the painting. She thought the Goddess looked too
much like her. I think I blinked
then. The Goddess was a good 50
pounds heavier than Alex with a completely different nose.

Alex asked if I would fly to Boston and fix the painting
one last time. On August 2, 2013 I
did exactly that. I walked into
the offices of Eliza. I began to
paint while my face felt flushed like that of a child asked to redo a math
problem in front of the entire class.
Throughout the day people would stop and talk to me and their energy and
warmth came to be the center of the painting.

The lady in black is crowned with the time the staff of
Eliza gave me. The sun and all the
planets of our solar system make her face. Her hair swirls into a symbolic yin and yang and the mythos
of the painting changes. Both male
and female must be in balance to do great work in care giving. Both leaders and staff must feel part
of the whole.

I am glad I was able to fly to Boston and complete the
painting.I was able to present it
before Alex and the staff and acknowledge their concerns.I told them Alex was the public face of Eliza.So she greatly inspired the piece.But nothing should stop them from being
part of the worldwide conversation in health care.They should blog, facebook and tweet. They should become a public face of this amazing organization. They should join the Walking Gallery and tell the world their stories.

Last week Suzanne Carter, data analyst from Eliza, did
exactly that. Her jacket addresses
the need for affordable hearing aids and is entitled: “Analyzing
Whispers.”

Thank you Suzanne, Alex
and all the staff of Eliza for being part of my celebration of Distaff
Day. I look forward to seeing
the new threads we create in 2014.

Friday, January 3, 2014

My dear friend Ted Eytan once asked me, “When are you going to name names? When
are you going to tell people the names of the hospitals?” I responded that I already did that as
it was happening. Everything was
posted in real time with a timestamp.

I was very thankful when Facebook came out with its timeline; now you could see everything that happened without endlessly scrolling
through page after page. Today I
compiled the most pertinent status lines of the last year of Frederick Holliday’s
life.

You can see interesting patterns when you scroll the days of
a life.

The first person Fred ever spoke to on Facebook was Christofer.

The last person Fred ever spoke to on Facebook was
Christofer.

They were the best of friends, but so were the many other
friends that graced Fred’s comment field.

You can see Fred and I loved our boys; you can see we loved
each other. You can see what
death looks like in the world of social media.

The Walking Gallery Mini Doc

About Me

Regina Holliday is a resident of Grantsville, Maryland. She serves on the board of the local non-profit The Highland Thrift Shop. She is a member of the Grantsville Rotary Club. She is also Asst. Cubmaster of Pack 460 Cub Scouts.

In addition, Regina serves as a parent advisor to the Garrett County School Board Health Advisory Committee. She is also a member of the Garrett County Chamber of Commerce and The Garrett County Arts Council.

Ms. Holliday is an activist, artist, speaker and author. You might see her at a health conference painting the content she hears from the patient view. She is part the movement known as participatory medicine. She and others in this movement believe that the patient is a partner with their provider and both should work together as a team.

Regina is a mother and a widow; she speaks about the benefits of health information technology and timely data access for patients due to her family loss. In 2009, she painted a series of murals depicting the need for clarity and transparency in medical records. This advocacy mission was inspired by her late husband Frederick Allen Holliday II and his struggle to get appropriate care during 11 weeks of continuous hospitalization at 5 facilities. Her paintings became part of the national debate on health care reform and helped guide public policy.

She also began an advocacy movement called “The Walking Gallery.” The Gallery consists of medical providers and advocates who wear patient story paintings on the backs of business suits. Paint and patients, pills and policy all come together within The Walking Gallery of Healthcare. This "walking wall" of 330+ individuals who wear personal patient narrative paintings on their backs is changing minds and opening hearts. They are attending medical conferences where often there isn’t a patient speaker on the dais or in the audience. They are providing a patient voice, and by doing so, are changing the conversation.

She published a book with the Health Informatics Society of Australia (HISA) entitled: "The Walking Wall: 73 Cents to the Walking Gallery."